HOW AUTHENTICITY HELPED ME TO GAIN INFLUENCE | FEATURING PHOTOS & VIDEOS OF THE VISIT | IN COLLABORATION WITH NORTHUMBERLAND ZOO

https://www.northumberlandzoo.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/NorthumberlandZoo/

https://www.instagram.com/northumberlandzoo

“The best times we’ve had on Earth, are usually with those we love.”

Van Harden

Something my Mum has massively instilled in me with my career as an Influencer for a long time now, has been ‘shy bairns get nowt.’ So, when I was told my Niece; Erynn, who lives in Scotland, was visiting my Mum and Step-Dad for four days and they invited me to go to Northumberland Zoo, I thought about what I might be able to do to make the trip a little bit more special. So, I called the Zoo and ended up speaking to the lovely Maxine who, in exchange for featuring on I’m NOT Disordered and my social media, offered us all complimentary entry passes! I was so excited to tell the three of them that I called them straight away when really, I ended up wishing I’d held it in longer and told them on the way there so that I could see their faces! Everyone was obviously really happy and very grateful, and I found myself filled with a sense of pride that I hadn’t experienced before. A pride that I have the type of influence that means I can do really nice things for my loved ones. So, I decided to use this blog post – that will feature my photos and videos from the Zoo – to also discuss how I’ve managed to use authenticity to build and gain this level of influence, what it means to me, why it matters to me, and how it feels to be able to use it in a way that benefits those who mean the most to me...

THE THINGS A SUICIDE ATTEMPT COULD STOP

A SHORT Q&A ABOUT MY UPCOMING RADIO APPEARANCE

I’m proud of who I am,

No more monsters, I can breathe again,

And you said that I was done,

Well, you were wrong and now, the best is yet to come

Ke$ha - Praying

After BBC Radio Newcastle, confirmed I could announce my live appearance on their Anna Foster show, I instantly wondered how I could share the announcement and so, I’ve chosen to answer a few AI-created (by Chat GPT) questions. If you want to hear more about my mental health journey, trauma recovery, and the growth of my Influencer career and pet bereavement project; Gracie’s Way (www.graciesway.co.uk or @GraciesWayUK on Instagram), then you can listen in live…

21.07.2026 at 11am: Radio Newcastle - Listen Live - BBC Sounds

A TRUE INSPIRATION FOR ORGANISATIONS: EVERYTHING WAYTHROUGH COMMS & MARKETING DO TO KEEP CO-PROUDUCTION AT THE HEART OF THEIR WORK | THE COMING TOGETHER MAGAZINE RE-LAUNCH

“There are people who make things happen, there are people who
watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what
happened. To be successful, you need to be the person who makes
things happen.”

Jim Lovell

I’m incredibly proud and very honoured to announce the re-launch of the completely refreshed Waythrough magazine; Coming Together (which you don’t have to be a service user or staff of the organisation to subscribe to, you can subscribe here: Sign up to newsletter - External or learn more about it here: Coming Together - our community magazine - Waythrough and if you have a story to submit: coming.together@waythrough.org.uk). I’m also very privileged and I feel incredibly fortunate to say that I’m now the Volunteer Lead Content Creator with the Waythrough Communications and Marketing team! In around 2023, I was given the opportunity to work with a local NHS Trust (Newcastle Hospitals) to create their Mental Health Strategy and in that partnership, I created a piece of content around why organisations should be following in their footsteps (you can read it: WHY NHS TRUSTS NEED TO BE FOLLOWING IN NEWCASTLE’S FOOTSTEPS!! | IN COLLABORATION WITH THE NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST | I'm NOT Disordered). The blog post proved to be fairly popular and so I wanted to take that sort of angle for this too and discuss the qualities that the Waythrough Communications and Marketing Department exhibit and use to ensure that co-production is at the heart of everything they do – a massive achievement for a ‘behind-the-scenes’ team to accomplish in mental health services…

THREE MILLION READERS!!!

“Believe in yourself. You are braver than you think, more talented than you know, and capable of more than you imagine.”

Roy T. Bennett

When I’m NOT Disordered reached around 2,950,000 readers I realised I should start deciding/planning/preparing to write a celebratory blog post and then I made a bit of a mistake of asking AI (namely Chat GPT) for ideas on a theme or angle for it… Why was it a mistake? Because I loved almost all of its ideas! So, in this post, I will be chatting through a whole mix of bits and pieces about this achievement; reasons why I started, reasons why I temporarily quit, reasons why I kept going and the lessons I learned throughout those moments...